I apologize for the video taking as long as it has… which seems a common preamble before each of these postings. In this instance, I was beset by illness just before the holidays, which only increased the amount of time I was incapable of finalizing the script, recording audio, and finding myself distraction-free enough to get some work done.

For this reason, I may not be able to pull together a 2024 in Review video in time. Nonetheless, I will still be trying.

As for Space Marine 2, well, I don’t know if I have many more thoughts than what I’ve placed into the video, save for some of the story details. However, to have gone into further detail would have dragged the video out longer than necessary.

There is, however, one thing regarding the common response to the game that I wanted to address.

Shortly after the release of Space Marine 2, there was a lot of headlines and social media posts talking about how the game is a “return to form”, and how it feels like the “good old days” again. I actually agree with this sentiment very much, but there is often an added suggestion that the reason we can’t have a game like this is due to socio-political discourse and beliefs. Honestly, I do not agree with this attitude, as there are plenty of other games that have delivered good experiences that have nothing to do with the controversy of the moment, and the thought process is typically led by superficial comparisons to games like the original Gears of War trilogy.

This does Space Marine 2 a disservice, however, as it plays its story very straight and very seriously. Most importantly, it handles the nature of loyalty, trust, and brotherhood with greater nuance and throughput than Gears of War had ever managed. It is very diminutive to make such comparisons simply because you feel like waging a culture war, and I wanted to present the game and its narrative in a light free of such comparisons.

Nonetheless, I will confess that the massive battlefields and myriad units littering the scorched earth feel like a promise fulfilled by those games on the earlier Xbox systems. To that end, Space Marine 2 is not a return, but a long-awaited continuation. I can only hope more games follow suit. For my part, I know I’ll be keeping an eye on Saber Interactive’s next game, a return to Turok.